Rafe Mendez, 62, retired commercial beekeeper, had been manning the 4H honey booth at the Fredericksburg Peach Festival for three hours when Lena walked up. The sun hung low over the peach orchards, painting the crowd pink, and his work boots were caked in dust and spilled peach cider. He’d sold 42 jars of mesquite and wildflower honey, enough to cover the local high school’s FFA bee program for the next year, and he was half considering packing up early to head home to his quiet stone cottage on the edge of town, where the only noise was the hum of the 12 hives he kept in his backyard for fun.
He knew who she was immediately, even though he hadn’t seen her in 21 years. Lena, Elara’s first cousin once removed, who’d been 19 the last time she’d come to Elara’s Christmas dinner, hair dyed neon pink, backpack slung over one shoulder, announcing she was moving to Portland to become a nurse. Now she was 47, hair sun-streaked brown, pulled back in a loose braid, wearing cutoff jean shorts and a faded Willie Nelson tee, fringe hanging off the sides of her scuffed leather work boots. She smelled like coconut sunscreen and spiked peach seltzer, and when she leaned over the folding table to get a closer look at the small batch of sourwood honey he’d set aside for regulars, her elbow brushed his, warm and solid, sending a jolt up his arm he hadn’t felt in a decade.
Rafe’s throat went dry. He’d forgotten that. He’d spent the last 8 years deliberately forgetting most small, happy memories, convinced holding onto them would only make the empty space in his house bigger. He tried to tell himself to pull away, that this was wrong, that he’d known her since she was 12, that Elara would roll her eyes so hard she’d give herself a headache if she saw him gawking at her cousin like a teenage boy. But he couldn’t look away from the freckles scattered across her nose, the way her thumb brushed the edge of his wrist one more time before she pulled back, picking up a jar of mesquite honey and twisting it in her hand.
She told him she’d moved back to town two weeks prior, taking a permanent position at the small regional hospital 20 minutes outside town, sick of traveling for contract nursing, sick of never having a place to hang her hat. They talked for 20 minutes, the line for the booth dying down, the sun dipping lower, turning the sky orange and purple. Every so often their hands would brush when they reached for the same jar, and she’d hold his eye contact, a small, teasing smile playing on her lips, like she knew exactly how flustered he was, like she was enjoying it. When the band struck up a slow, twangy cover of George Strait’s “Amarillo by Morning,” she set the honey jar down, leaned across the table again, and held out her hand. “Dance with me,” she said, no hesitation, no shyness, like she’d been planning to ask for years.
He hesitated, his first instinct to say no, to tell her he hadn’t danced since Elara’s 50th birthday, that he was too old, that this was a bad idea. But then she tilted her head, and he remembered Elara, lying in their bed three weeks before she died, holding his hand, telling him he better not spend the rest of his life moping, that he deserved to have fun, that she didn’t want him to be alone. He took her hand, her palm warm and rough against his, let her pull him around the table to the small cleared space that passed for a dance floor. His hand settled on her waist, and he could feel the heat of her skin through the thin fabric of her tee, their legs brushing when they swayed to the music, her head resting on his shoulder for a slow beat, her breath warm against his neck. “I’ve had a crush on you since I was 17,” she whispered, so quiet he almost didn’t hear it over the music. “Never said anything. You were always off limits.”
The song ended a minute later, but they didn’t let go of each other, standing there in the middle of the crowd, people bumping into their shoulders as they headed for the beer line. She pulled back first, grinning up at him, her cheeks pink from the sun and the seltzer. She asked if he wanted to get a peach cobbler from the food truck down the street once he was done packing up the booth, said she’d heard they drizzled honey on top of the ice cream they served with it. He nodded, his throat still tight, and reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair that had fallen out of her braid behind her ear, no hesitation, no flicker of guilt, for the first time in 8 years. When she grinned and squeezed his hand before stepping back to let him help the elderly woman who’d walked up to the booth holding a crumpled $10 bill, he tasted the honey he’d licked off his thumb ten minutes earlier, sweet and sharp and nothing like he’d expected.
